UK Trident Programme - Legality

Legality

On 8 July 1996 the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the United Nations, handed down an advisory opinion that stated that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would in most cases violate various articles of international law, including the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, the UN Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

On 19 December 2005 Rabinder Singh QC and Professor Christine Chinkin, a colleague of Cherie Blair at Matrix Chambers, handed down a legal opinion at the request of Peacerights which specifically addressed

"whether Trident or a likely replacement to Trident breaches customary international law"

Drawing on the ICJ opinion, Singh and Chinkin argued that:

"The use of the Trident system would breach customary international law, in particular because it would infringe the "intransgressible" requirement that a distinction must be drawn between combatants and non-combatants."

In addition, Singh and Chinkin argued:

"The replacement of Trident is likely to constitute a breach of article VI of the NPT... uch a breach would be a material breach of that treaty."

On 25 January 2007, Des Browne, UK Defence Minister, defended the use of Trident:

"I do not believe it makes sense to say that nuclear weapons are inherently evil. In certain circumstances, they can play a positive role - as they have in the past. But clearly they have a power to do great harm," he said. "Are we prepared to tolerate a world in which countries which care about morality lay down their nuclear weapons, leaving others to threaten the rest of the world or hold it to ransom?"